Started out quite promisingly, with an interesting protagonist and a world that someone had clearly given quite a bit of thought to in terms of world-building (loved the talking birds, though I could see how they could be quite a pain, as indeed some of them are in the book).

Then it all went a bit grisly when it came to talking about how the titular Machine God was brought to life (the last thing I read that had a similar feel to it was KJ Parker's The Belly of the Bow) but after that it kind of lost its way. The ending was a bit of an anti-climax, as was the moustache-twirling behaviour of our 'unexpected' villain.

Sadly our protagonist also didn't really seem to survive intact and became himself a bit of a caricature, neither one thing or another. Disappointing.